


How It Begins

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: community: tv_universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He glances over his shoulder at Ray, imagines a city full of undead things converging on some hastily constructed refugee camp.  It will be idiotic to go there, it will probably get him killed… but he can't leave his brother.  He can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> 5th of 5 unconnected stories written for LJ's tv_universe community, for the challenge "Who Said What Now?" The challenge is to incorporate a quote from one show into a story for another show. The quote I used for this story was originally spoken by Debbie Berwick from Phil of the Future -- "Okay. That's close enough."
> 
> Pre-Series.
> 
> * * *

Daryl blinks in the stillness, his senses on alert before he's even sure he's fully awake. Everything filters in slowly as he lays there, barely breathing – the broken springs on the old sofa digging into his ribs, the stale odor from the beer can on the table, the soft pre-dawn light trickling through the threadbare curtains. He shifts, winces when the sofa creaks with the movement, strains to hear.

The back door crashes against the house, squeals and then bangs back against the warped frame.

Daryl lets out a breath, eases back down on the sofa. He swipes the back of his hand over his face, grimaces when he feels the sweat and grime on his skin, in his hair. He realizes he can't remember much of the night before, just like he can't remember much of the night before that or the night before that. Merle showing up back home has been a bad damn influence. 

Daryl pushes himself up on an elbow, glances into the little dining room that Merle appropriated six weeks ago. Not a sign of his older brother, and no shock there. Merle's been disappearing more and more lately. Swears he's not on the meth again, but Daryl's no fool – he knows the signs. Only one way this is gonna end, and that's Merle heading back to the Pen. He shakes his head, pulls himself up and stretches. Nothing he can do about Merle. 

But he can get himself back on track. He can start by fixing that damn door so it doesn't come unlatched every fucking time the wind picks up. Then he can have a shower, wash his hair; make himself a decent breakfast for a change. Then he'll—

Footsteps in the hall.

Daryl's freezes, eyes the darkened hallway. 

Nothing but silence and the muffled banging of the door, and for a moment he thinks he imagined it. Thinks it's just his mind playing tricks on him again, what with Merle being home and making the bad memories so easy to flood back to the surface.

Shuffling steps. A body brushing against the wall, setting the old family photos slithering in their frames.

Gotta be Merle, straggling home after an all-night bender, drunk as a damn skunk. But even as he thinks it Daryl reaches for the shotgun propped at the end of the sofa, slots it loosely in his arm and backs toward the front door, his gaze never leaving the dim archway and the hallway leading to the back of the house. 

The first thing he notices when the figure stumbles into the room is the clothes, torn and still tacky with blood. Then the stench, the coppery scent of the blood mixed with offal and the pungent odor of the hunt, of things butchered and hung to bleed out in the dilapidated shed out back. The figure staggers, right shoulder brushing against the wall and leaving a trail of dried blood and thicker, darker things smeared onto the faded wallpaper. Daryl blinks, eases the shotgun away from his shoulder and takes a tentative step forward.

"Ray?" he says. "The hell? What the fuck happened to you?"

The figure turns, and Daryl has the shotgun whipped back up and his finger hovering on the trigger even as he tries to make sense of what he's seeing. It's Ray Matthews all right. Same scar on the bridge of his nose, same blond curly hair they've been teasing him about since the third grade. But there's something wrong with his eyes, something wrong with the way he hunches his shoulders and lurches forward.

Daryl squints in the gloom. He feels stupid holding a gun on Ray, stupid and mean, especially when the man's clearly been injured. But the hair on the back of his neck is standing on end and every instinct in his body is telling him to shoot. Shoot and run.

He compromises by lowering the shotgun slightly but letting himself take a step back for every swaying stumbling step that Ray takes toward him. He clears his throat, raises his voice. "Okay, that's close enough."

Ray's good arm swings up then, pale fingers sticky with dried blood reaching out for him. Ray opens his mouth, snaps at the air. Daryl flinches back at the sound that comes out of his mouth, a guttural rasp like an animal caught in a trap. There is nothing human in that sound. 

He slots the shotgun back into place, knows that he'll shoot to stop whatever's making that sound and damn the consequences. But one part of him still insists that this is Ray, the lightweight who gets drunk after four bottles of Bud, the man who can pull off the best poker bluff he's ever seen. Daryl shakes his head, takes another step away from the man. "I'm warnin' ya," he yells, "get back!"

Daryl hears the footsteps behind him, half-turns toward the sound. In the space of an eye-blink he sees Merle's arm come up, the burly figure of Burt behind him, the door leading out to the front porch swinging closed. Then he's wincing at the blast from the pistol that Merle isn't supposed to have. By the time he turns back to Ray the man is slumping back onto the worn carpet and his brains are splattered all over the old cabinet television.

"Pack your shit, little brother," Merle says, pushing past him into the living room. "We're gettin' out."

Daryl lets the shotgun drop to hang loosely from his fingers, swipes a hand through his greasy hair. Watches his brother dart around the room gathering supplies like he's just going on a weekend camping trip while Ray lies in a pool of blood and gore, half his head blown away. Finally he grabs at Merle's arm, forces him to stop moving. "Are you nuts?" he yells. "You just fucking killed Ray Matthews!"

Merle drags his arm away. "Weren't Ray no more," he sneers.

Daryl looks back at the body, at the spray of blood beneath the shattered skull. "What the hell are you—"

He winces when Merle's fingers wrap around the back of his neck, when Merle uses the element of surprise to push him to his knees, his face inches from Ray's chest. The shotgun drops from his grasp. "You blind, little brother?" Merle says. "You see that?" 

Daryl struggles, pushing back at the hand crushing him until Merle abruptly lets him go. He stumbles, nearly falls face first into the corpse. He shuffles back in revulsion, but his eyes come back to the jagged hole in Ray's stomach that Merle wanted him to see. He reaches out but stops just short of touching the ragged edges of the wound, does not want to touch the deep indentations of human teeth that had ripped and torn into the skin, does not want his fingers somehow dipping into that cavity and touching the slick, putrid entrails. 

He looks up. "Jesus Christ."

"Them things," Merle says, nodding toward the old black and white in the corner, "the ones they been showin' in the cities up North. Things that want to eat you, want to pull the flesh from your skin and swallow it down raw and bloody. They're here, little brother. And they ain't sick. They're dead." He nudges the corpse with his boot. "Ray was already dead. Just didn't know enough to lay down."

"And there's more," Burt says. "Lots more."

Daryl'd forgotten Burt was even in the room. He glances up to see the man slumped against the wall, one arm resting on his gut. Then he reaches out for the shotgun and gets to his feet. His mind wants to reel with the idea of walking goddamn corpses, wants to shut down, even wants to mourn for Ray, the poor bastard… but there isn't time. Not if what Burt said is true. Not if there's more of these things out there. He chambers a bullet, steps away from the body. "What's the plan?"

"Atlanta," Merle answers. "Got some kind of refugee centre set up. We go there, cool our heels until this whole thing blows over."

Daryl shakes his head. "Don't make sense. Wanna avoid large groups of people, not go to 'em."

Merle doesn't look up from where he's piling supplies into the old quilt from the sofa. "Burt heard it on the radio."

"You sure he heard it right? Burt ain't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, Merle."

Daryl sees Burt shove off from the wall out of the corner of his eye. Burt was a bully when he and Merle hung together as kids, and he's a bully now. But size only matters when you're twelve and scrawny and your big brother's friend is eighteen and built like a mac truck. He's not twelve anymore.

Burt lumbers into him, pokes a fat finger into his chest. "You sayin' you don't believe me?" 

"No, I'm sayin' you're a fuckin' idiot! That clear enough for ya, asswipe?" He shoves out with the heel of his hand, sends the other man sprawling. "Get outta my damn face." 

Merle stands before they can get into it further, shoves the quilt into Burt's arms. "Back of the truck," he says. Daryl recognizes that tone and apparently Burt does too, because he shuts his damn mouth and stalks out. 

Daryl waits until the front door has shut behind him before turning to his brother. "Atlanta?"

"You got a better idea?"

Daryl does, in fact. The old hunting cabin would make a better place to hunker down and ride this thing out. But Merle's got that wild look in his eye, and Daryl knows he could talk 'til he's blue in the face and Merle won't budge. His only other option would be to head to the cabin on his own, let Merle take his chances with Burt in the city. He glances over his shoulder at Ray, imagines a city full of undead things converging on some hastily constructed refugee camp. It will be idiotic to go there, it will probably get him killed… but he can't leave his brother. He can't.

Daryl's shoulders slump. He shakes his head. "No."

"All right then," Merle says. He clamps a hand on Daryl's shoulder, squeezes just a shade tighter than necessary. "You gather up the food, little brother. I'm gonna grab the sleeping bags and the lanterns. They still in the shed?"

He's out of the room before Daryl can answer, already yelling something over to Burt in the front yard. Daryl starts toward the kitchen, hesitates at the body sprawled on the floor. Ray Matthews wasn't a friend – Daryl doesn't have any of those. But he was a decent enough guy; he never cheated at cards, always stood a guy for a draft before payday. He didn't deserve this.

Daryl walks quickly over the cabinet before he can change his mind; pulls down the embroidered cloth that used to cover the table in the dining room, before Merle came back and blanketed it with empty beer cans and ashtrays overflowing with roaches. His fingers brush against the raised designs, red and pink and yellow flowers, and he can still remember his mother bent over the cloth in the sunlight, painstakingly working the design with brightly coloured floss. That was before the drink got her. 

He pushes the memory aside with a grunt and shakes out the cloth, drapes it hurriedly over Ray's body and watches as bright red flowers blossom here and there over the clean white fabric.

Then he heads to the kitchen, starts stacking cans of beans and packages of KD into an empty beer case. The sun's come up while they've been talking – while they've been destroying the thing that used to be Ray Matthews – and the little kitchen is flooded with light. Daryl doesn't have to glance at the thermometer mounted on the wall to know that the day will be a scorcher. The sweat is already dampening the hair at the nape of his neck and trickling down his spine.

The back door slams back and forth against the wall, squeals on rusty hinges with every gust of wind. 

Daryl shivers. He's got a real bad feeling that he's never going to be back to fix that damn door.


End file.
